Page 6 of Never Yours

Ingrid and Travis stop talking and look at me. She glances between us a few times, then sheepishly replies, “Oh, hi. Um, it’s… fiction.” Though I’m sure it’s smut, she won’t admit it in front of Travis. Cass says the same thing when you ask what she’s reading.

“Fiction?”

“Yup. Just good, old-fashioned fiction,” she insists a little too quickly, her cheeks dusted a light pink.

Travis rests his arm on the back of her chair. “Can we get another round?” He lifts his shot glass, but my eyes don’t move from where he is dangerously close to what’s mine.

My jaw tics. “Sure. What are you drinking?”

“Tequila, please,” she answers for them.

Fuck, is she on a date with him?

I pour a double shot of reposado, sliding it to her, then pour a second for Travis. “Bad week?”

Ingrid groans, “The worst.”

Travis attempts to pay me, but I insist, “On me.”

Her eyes rake my body, and even though I enjoy her checking me out, I can’t help feeling a pang of hurt that she doesn’t recognize me. Granted, we haven’t spoken since that night, and I’m a good thirty pounds of muscle heavier with a beard I’ve been growing since I got home, but it still stings.

It also doesn’t excuse Travis for taking her out the first night she’s in town; he knows what she means to me. Pop didn’t give me much to go on, but I sure as hell hope he’s not the reason she’s back after all these years.

Feeling my blood pressure rise, I move down the bar and pour beer for a few of my regulars. Even with her being on a date, Ingrid’s paying more attention to what I’m doing than whatever Travis is saying to her. I do my best to hide my enjoyment of her brushing off his advances, but satisfaction gets the best of me, and I can’t help smiling and stealing glances of her.

After ten minutes, Travis appears to give up and puts cash down on the bar. That’s right. Back off. She’s mine. Sliding off his seat, he puts on his SLFD cap and shouts to me, “See you next week, Rogers.”

I nod, and he leaves, allowing me to focus my attention back on my favorite redhead. As I am pouring her another shot, she searches my eyes for a moment before hers widen.

“Cay?”

ingrid

. . .

“See you next week, Rogers,” Travis shouts to our bartender as he leaves the bar.

Rogers?

No. No, no, no.

He’s taller, filled out, and… a beard?

Fuck, he looks good.

No. It can’t be Cay. Can it?

It has to be his cousin.

Cass and Caleb don’t have cousins…

“Cay?” I squeak, praying I’m wrong and it didn’t look like I was flirting with Travis in front of him. The moment his boyish grin paints his face, the air from my lungs whooshes from my body. I down the shot and quickly place a slice of lime between my teeth.

“Another?”

“Uh-huh,” I reply, my voice an octave higher and shaky, and he pours one more.

Fucking Cassidy. She said she’d have “someone” drive me home from the bar; she didn’t mention it would be him. When I saw Travis, I thought for sure it was him, until he said he was about to start a 72-hour shift at the station.

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